I did it this year, and I got 26K words. I didn't win, but it's 26K more than the guy who didn't write at all. I'm still working on my novel and trying to get it to full-length, so I think it was a useful experience.

1700 words in a day isn't intimidating, but the problem comes about when you skip a day. 3000 words is a pretty long day. Skip two days and forget about it!